TV Under Trump: What Gets Bought, How Much & Where It's Shot is About to Change
From M&A to creative shifts, industry insiders brace for impact
Elaine covers the TV market from L.A. She’s recently been reporting what every studio and streamer wants to buy right now and how to pitch them (for paid subscribers only), including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney brands ABC, Disney+, Hulu and FX, and Apple TV+.
Welp, it’s Monday, Series Business readers. While I’d originally planned to bring you another installment of the Fall Market Guide, more pressing questions have arisen in the wake of last week’s election, which promises another four years of a Trump administration. (We’ll return to our regular programming next week, with a menu of NBCUniversal’s current appetites.)
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Most people I’ve spoken to are still digesting the results and what it means for, say, reproductive rights and marginalized communities. Beyond that, some are gradually starting to think about how Trump’s second term will impact those who live and work in Hollywood.
“People might be concerned: ‘Hey, why are we worrying about the industry at a time like this?’” says Adam Conover, the Adam Ruins Everything writer and comedian who was a prominent voice during last year’s Writers Guild strike. “But when it comes to issues like this, you have to look at your area, how it affects your community . . . just like anybody else is concerned about their own neck of the woods and looking out for people in their own backyard.”
Yet more job losses in the wake of the anticipated M&A frenzy that industry leaders have been predicting is the most pertinent concern. But as Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan told Ankler editor-in-chief Janice Min in Aug. 2023 on The Ankler podcast, the implications of market consolidation are wide-ranging for everyone. “The combination of this consolidation and vertical integration seems to have created a market structure where we hear about how writers and producers and showrunners are all making less, even as companies are charging customers more,” Khan said. “And critics seem to say that the quality of content being produced is actually in decline.”
Khan is widely expected to be replaced as chair, and Trump surrogates such as Elon Musk have called for her to be fired from the FTC entirely. The new FTC chair is unlikely to share her views.
There’s also simmering curiosity about what studios and networks will read into the apparent shifting values of the American electorate, and how that will permeate programming choices. If I had a nickel for every time someone brought up Taylor Sheridan in conversation with me this week . . .
In this week’s Series Business, you’ll learn:
How industry consolidation will affect how many shows get bought
Whether the end of Peak TV or mergers will have a greater effect on studio jobs
How potential Trump policies could impact production
Whether creatives expect a “conservative creep” in content
How one showrunner recalls feeling creatively “policed” after Trump was first elected in 2016
How programmers are rethinking how to capture socially conservative audiences
The common denominator that could be the way to program to every part of the country
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